cysic_xyz received $12 million in Pre-A financing led by Hashkey and OKX Venture. Although the valuation has not been disclosed, I personally believe that the "hardware acceleration" track, connecting ZK+DePIN+AI, can support a very considerable valuation in the long run. The reason is simple:
1) ZK zero-knowledge proof technology will gradually become the core technology for trusted connections between chains. When building a distributed Prover component system, the demand for ZK computing density, lightweight, and low energy consumption will gradually increase. ZK hardware acceleration can help ZK become the infrastructure of the entire chain ecosystem from the hardware level, consolidating the proportion and status of ZK in the current blockchain infra.
In terms of Web3, ZK hardware acceleration will become a rigid component in the "chain abstraction" direction of full-chain interoperability. Currently, due to the limitation of hardware performance, ZK is limited to simple consistency confirmation based on proofs such as SNAKs. If the computing and verification performance is improved, the potential of ZK technology will be further released in the future in the direction of ZK privacy computing;
2) ZK+DePIN is the main narrative of Cysic. In the long run, it will provide very strong underlying technical support for the AI track, allowing AI+DePIN to truly set off this wave of bull market. Because AI large model training, machine learning reasoning, AI privacy protection and other directions will also have a strong demand for "hardware acceleration". For example, hardware acceleration is used to promote ZK technology to provide privacy protection for large model training, and hardware acceleration is used to enhance the efficiency of machine learning reasoning and reduce energy consumption.
From this perspective, Cysic aims to integrate ZK and AI application scenarios through hardware acceleration. Its future service scenarios will span web2+web3, with a broader ecological development potential, and the valuation imagination space will be good.